Reckless

by Andrew Gross

  A team of government agents jumped out. Hauck saw a stocky, dark-complexioned man in a tan suit, followed by Naomi, in a brown pantsuit, close behind. Three more agents exited the second SUV, wearing earphones.

  He recognized them all as FBI.

  He went up to Naomi and her demeanor brightened when she saw him. “I’m glad you’re here. This is Senior Agent in Charge Anthony Bruni.” She introduced him to the agent in the tan suit. “He’s with the Financial Crimes Task Force in New York. This is Ty Hauck. He’s worked with me on much of this case. More like I’ve worked with him.”

  Hauck shook hands in front of the entrance to the hotel.

  “I know who you are.” Bruni nodded respectfully. “I followed what you did on the Grand Central bombing case and that mess up in Hartford. Glad to have you aboard.”

  Hauck nodded back appreciatively, as if surprised his exploits had made their radar.

  Bruni grinned. “Hey, FBI agents watch CNN too.”

  He stationed two of his men at the cars and one in the lobby; the other two went with them in FBI Windbreakers as they entered the posh hotel. “This could go several ways,” Bruni explained. “And it won’t be quiet. One thing I know: the ruling family back in Bahrain is going to throw a fit. We have a representative of the State Department meeting us back at FBI offices.” He smirked. “You might also think about shorting Reynolds Reid stock before the end of the day. This isn’t going to go well on the Street, either.”

  The group entered the crowded lobby and went up to the front desk. The hotel manager, in a black suit, came out to meet them. “I’m Special Agent Bruni,” the FBI man said. “We spoke on the phone.”

  The manager, a tall fortysomething man with a receding hair-line, appeared understandably anxious that a procedure of this magnitude was taking place at his hotel. “I checked. Mr. Hassani is still in his room,” he said. “He arrived about forty minutes ago and hasn’t come back out. I’m hoping you can exit through the side entrance on Fiftieth and keep this as discreet as you can.”

  “We’ll do everything we can,” Bruni assured him. He radioed to the drivers to wait around the block. Then he turned to Naomi. “Ready, Agent Blum? It’s your show.”

  The determination was clear on Naomi’s face. Not only was this the biggest arrest of her career, but she had traced this since it was no more than two seemingly unrelated deaths of Wall Street traders. They’d tied them to a cryptic call from Hassani and followed the chain of money to Serbia and London, murders blocking them every step of the way. Now they were back to Hassani.

  “One hundred percent,” Naomi said, inhaling a deep breath and casting a tight smile at Hauck.

  “Then let’s go.”

  Hauck, Naomi, Bruni, the hotel manager, and the two accompanying agents went over to the elevators across the red carpeted lobby. When it came, the manager politely asked a couple about to step in if they could wait for the next one. They climbed in. The elevator whisked them to the twelfth floor, where Hassani was staying. On the private floor, there was a concierge seated behind a desk.

  “Chris, is Mr. Hassani still in his room?” the manager asked.

  “Yes, sir.” The concierge nodded, checking. “He went in about forty minutes ago. There’s only been one other person on the floor, another guest, who went in and out shortly after.”

  In and out.

  Naomi’s gaze shot to Hauck. He saw in it the same sense of alarm that was buzzing through him.

  This couldn’t happen again.

  Naomi started to run. With her leading the way, they went quickly down the long hall of rooms and turned the corner to the suite at the end.

  The wooden double door read 1201.

  Naomi knocked. “Mr. Hassani! This is Agent Naomi Blum of the United States Department of the Treasury. We need you to open the door.”

  There was no answer.

  She knocked again, this time with more force. “Mr. Hassani. This is the United States Treasury Department. Please open the door.”

  They waited again. Nothing came back. Hauck could feel the nerves rising in Naomi’s blood.

  The same feeling was going on in his.

  Bruni stepped in. “Mr. Hassani, this is the last time we are going to ask you. This is the FBI. We need you to open the door. We have a federally executed warrant for you to come with us on matters of national security. If we don’t hear a response, we’ll be forced to make our own way in.”

  They waited a few more seconds. No sound emanated from the suite. Bruni nodded to the hotel manager, who stepped between them, wearing a concerned look, and slipped an electronic key into the lock. The green light flashed with a click. He turned the handle and opened the door, then backed away.

  Bruni and the two agents behind him drew their arms. “Mr. Hassani, we are coming in…”

  The door struck something hard.

  With an anxious look, Bruni put his shoulder against it and forced it open. It took just a second for it to become clear something was deadly wrong.

  A heavyset, Middle Eastern–looking bodyguard in a dark suit was on his back on an expensive-looking Oriental rug.

  Two dark circles of blood spread on the man’s white shirt.

  Hauck’s own blood scame to a stop.

  Naomi muttered, “Oh, no, no, no, no…,” and, rushing inside, shouted, “Mr. Hassani?”

  The entrance opened to a spacious and modern living area. There was a wall bar, a set of curtained windows overlooking Park Avenue. Next to it was a large dining room and a kitchen.

  “Mr. Hassani!” she called out again. Now everyone had their weapons drawn.

  The team of agents spread, the cry of “Clear! Clear!” echoing through the multiroom suite.

  Hauck went ahead of Naomi and found what looked like the master bedroom. He carefully stepped into the room, his Sig in front of him, but when he saw what was there he lowered the weapon.

  “He’s in here.”

  A man reclined on the bed, in his sixties maybe, wearing a white terry bathrobe, gray bearded, reading glasses on his forehead, composed, a newspaper spread on his chest as if he were napping.

  A bright red hole dotted the center of his forehead.

  Naomi and the other agents rushed in. She stopped, as if some invisible force had halted her motion, and she gazed, deflated, at the bed. Her fists clenched and she pressed her lips tightly, her eyes glassing over in anger and dismay.

  A look of understanding spread across her face.

  “Simons?” Hauck asked.

  “No.” She shook her head. “It’s larger than Simons.” She took her gaze off Hassani and turned back to Hauck. “I know what’s happening, Ty.”

  He nodded back. “So do I.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX

  Peter Simons was pleased.

  The annual meeting had been a home run. He had stood up in front of two thousand concerned shareholders in the Grand Ballroom at the Pierre and mapped out—simulcast on a giant screen above him and across the globe—how Reynolds Reid was in position to emerge as one of the victors in these challenging times.

  Yes, he had acknowledged, the stock price had taken a hit. The entire financial sector had.

  Yes, there were billion-dollar write-downs that would have to be taken. The government had proposed a possible rescue plan for the troubled banks. It was conceivable the firm might participate in it, he told the shareholders.

  Participate?

  Simons had to hold himself back from laughing out loud. It was the biggest bonanza in the company’s history. And he had been sitting at the table where it was conceived, Simons reflected with glee, but, of course, he could not divulge this.

  Still, the firm was solid, he declared. It was not in line to be one of the casualties, he said with commitment. It had shifted out of its subprime positions long before many of its competitors, like Wertheimer or Citi or Merrill. Its balance sheet was fundamentally strong.

  In addition, he announced, the troubled times had worked in t
he company’s favor. The board had just approved their offer to acquire one of the largest mortgage companies that had recently failed. It had added prized pieces of Wertheimer too, which the firm had long coveted. It had just put in an offer to buy a 20 percent stake in AVO, a Dutch bank, which would strengthen its position in Europe. It had recently shored up new and substantial lines of capital in the Middle East.

  Of course, he said, the firm had taken hits. But they were in a strong position to weather the storm. Not to simply weather it, he declared, but to emerge stronger and better positioned from it.

  The packed ballroom responded with a standing ovation.

  Now, hours later, back in his office on the forty-third floor, Simons caught the reactions on CNBC and Fox Business. The commentators were saying how Reynolds seemed uniquely positioned to take advantage of the crisis. Even if they needed government funds, it would only serve to strengthen the company’s reserves. Wertheimer and Beeston were history. Merrill and Lehman seemed ready to join them there.

  The stock price had jumped almost 20 percent in an hour.

  Satisfied, Simons reclined back at his desk and took out a cigar. He had done what he had to do. What he needed to do. The landscape around him had to be cleansed. Yes, there would be a year, maybe two, of turmoil. Of uncertainty. Yes, their own results would be slow to come back. Job loses. Contraction. Those were all just statistics. All simply debris, he mused, swept away by the gale forces of change.

  But when the winds finally calmed, who would be there to profit on the rebound? Who, made flush with endless government funds, strengthened by their tight relationship to the Fed, would emerge the winner in this new world? The administrator of the TARP fund was an ex-Reynolds man. The head of the New York Fed had been their head of fixed income for years. It was like Skull and Bones all over again. You don’t leave things to the government to sort out, Simons thought, chuckling with pride.

  We are the fucking government.

  The seeds were planted well.

  Harold Molinari, Simons’s CFO, called saying he wanted to share the Street’s reaction. Simons buzzed for him to come on down. Later, there was a partners’ dinner at Cipriani. Yes, it would be a long road back. A difficult climb. But Peter Simons had done what he had to do to win.

  He had not let them down.

  His office door opened. Simons spun expansively, expecting to greet his gloating CFO. “Hal!”

  Instead he was staring into the panicked face of his secretary, who was followed by two men he did not know.

  One was in a tan suit, and he came up to Simons’s desk and dropped a badge in front of his face.

  A heavy weight plummeted inside Simons. Over the years, he’d become very familiar with the look of someone who was holding your balls in his mouth and was about to chew. He had that look down to a science.

  He was staring at that same expression now.

  “Mr. Simons,” the man in the suit said, smiling victoriously, “my name is Senior Agent Anthony Bruni, and I’m from the FBI.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN

  They took the Amtrak Metroliner back to DC.

  The government jet had already returned; they had assumed Naomi would be in New York for a while as part of Hassani’s interrogation.

  But now Naomi realized the less anyone knew about their whereabouts, the better. Outside the hotel suite, Hauck had run the photo Steve Chrisafoulis had sent him earlier by the desk concierge on the twelfth floor. Jack “Red” O’Toole. The man immediately pointed to him as the “other guest” on the floor who had come by just after Hassani had gone in. They looked into who had made the booking: A phony name. A stolen Amex card. But now at least they knew. They knew who was doing the killing. Who had killed April. And the picture began to come clear just for whom. Hauck showed Naomi something else, something that Marcus Hird in Switzerland had sent back today. Naomi’s mood grew somber. This changed everything again. Hauck had never seen her look as nervous and unsure of what to do.

  On the train, she and Hauck sat in two facing seats in the business car. They rode in silence for much of the way, stations flashing by. Newark. Metropark. Trenton. It was clear Naomi was gearing up for what she had to do. She joked fatalistically to him about some frozen lake up in northern Montana—how that might not even be an option by the end of the day. She took a call from Bruni, who now had Simons in hand. He arranged for them to be met by some of his colleagues when they arrived at Union Station in DC.

  Sometimes you just step into something, Hauck knew, watching her steeling herself for the task that had to be done. Something larger than yourself. Something that just needs to be seen through. It may not be what you set out for at the beginning. It’s not exactly your plan. It’s more like your fate—or where fate guides you. Those with the part of them inside that does not look away. Back down. You look around for someone else to carry the ball. To run with it.

  And it’s just you.

  And it can cost you, Hauck knew, dearly. His whole career seemed to be a lesson in that. It had cost him a brother. If he had only looked away…It had cost him his friend and closest protégé on the job. It might now cost him Annie. Why can’t you love me like that? Chasing the ghost of a dead friend.

  He looked away and felt the train rattling on the tracks. If only that’s what it was…

  But you see it through. Certain of them were like that. You follow it all the way to the end. Regardless of who it swallows up or to what frozen lake it leads. When Naomi looked up and the two of them caught each other’s eyes, it was as if they were both thinking the same thing. Both recognized the look.

  They smiled.

  “I need something to eat,” he said. “Want anything?”

  Naomi shook her head. “No, thanks.”

  He got up. “I’ll be right back.”

  The train was shuttling swiftly between Philadelphia and Wilmington. Hauck headed back up the aisle. A group of four businesspeople were crowded around a table, laptops out. In the next row, a man in a military cap appeared to be dozing, his brim pulled down.

  Hauck flung open the door and crossed into the next car.

  He found a snack bar two cars ahead and ordered a roast beef sandwich and a coffee for himself, and in spite of what she’d said, a turkey sandwich and a bottle of water for Naomi. She probably hadn’t had a bite to eat all day.

  The clerk gave Hauck one of those cardboard trays. He made his way back up to his car, the motion of the train making it all hard to carry. He slid open the heavy outside door to his car, holding it open with his foot. Made his way back up the aisle. He saw Naomi still sitting at the far end of the car. A female college student had a People magazine on her lap. A black woman was knitting. The businesspeople were still recounting their meeting. He passed the guy dozing in the cap. He noticed the lettering in gold embroidery on the back, and a warning bell suddenly went off in him

  101st Airborne.

  Hauck glanced down, noticing the thick braid of hair knotted into a short ponytail that peeked through the back of the cap.

  Everything stopped.

  He immediately flashed to the photos Evan had snapped of the two men who had killed his family.

  One had a short ponytail.

  Some kind of tattoo on his neck.

  His body suddenly tingling, he flashed to the photo he had seen today.

  He started forward again, catching Naomi’s eye. As he passed, the man in the military cap seemed to stir, shifting to the side. Hauck looked down with a quick glance. The man was wearing a gray T-shirt under a nylon jacket.

  What he saw sent a tremor down his spine.

  That same tattoo. On his neck.

  It looked like a panther’s claw.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT

  Hauck’s body went rigid with determination.

  It was him. O’Toole. It had to be. Even before Hauck sat back down his mind fast-forwarded through what he had to do. Anger roiled in him. It was a crowded car. The train still had an hour to go
. There could be no mistake. Thibault. Al-Bashir. Hassani. Dead.

  They were after them now.

  There was no way they would make it to DC.

  He sat back down, his stomach tensing, this time on the opposite side, next to Naomi. His heart raced with the inevitability of two speeding trains about to collide. He put the tray between them. Naomi looked up, unsuspecting. She smiled, looking over what he had brought her. “Thanks.”

  Hauck looked back up the aisle. The man was solid, shoulders hunched, arms folded, hugging his chest. His face was hidden underneath the hat’s brim.

  Hauck wanted to leap up and kill him.

  But he also knew O’Toole was aware of him too. The guy was a professional. Army trained. He clearly had no hesitation about what he had to do. He had killed a kid, for Christ’s sake. Murdered an entire family.

  Hauck knew the guy was measuring him too.

  Hauck leaned close to Naomi and squeezed her knee, trying not to give a sign that anything was wrong. “You remember that nice couple who picked up our Saudi friend in London?” he whispered under his breath.

  Naomi looked back. Seeing his steady gaze. Sensing something wrong.

  She nodded slowly, her pupils widening, meeting his.

  “I don’t want you to show a reaction,” Hauck said, tightening the pressure on her knee, “but those very same people are here for us now.”

  She blinked. Her gaze displayed the slightest tremor of fear. She leaned back and nodded, this time with a beat of alarm. “What are we going to do?”

  Hauck glanced back toward at the man, who seemed to shift their way. “I don’t know.”

  He felt underneath his jacket for his gun. He quietly unsnapped the holster. The car was crowded with unsuspecting people. Maybe the only thing to do was to seize the fact that he knew. Rush O’Toole. He had killed April, her family. His heart starting to throb, he had to hold himself back. His only ally was the element of surprise.